


Couple's Counselling

by StolenChilde



Series: John'Verse [34]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Bad Innuendo, Blasphemy, Child OCs, Domestic, Domestic Violence, Established Relationship, Grumpy!Castiel, John T.'s POV, Kid Fic, Language, M/M, Petulant!Dean, Slash, Typical Angry/Dysfunctional Dean and Cas Dynamic, Wise!John T., show-level violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 02:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7490070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StolenChilde/pseuds/StolenChilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since John can remember he’s played mediator for his parents when their strong personalities clashed, but can a situation arise that even John cannot fix?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Couple's Counselling

**Author's Note:**

> Oh wow... It's been a while, a long while. 
> 
> Welcome to Story Twenty-Three of my [John’Verse](http://stolen-childe.livejournal.com/84812.html)! Okay, I’ve had this written for ages, but I was really anxious about it because of the end mostly, due to the nature of the relationship it can and probably will be interpreted as mild domestic violence, please be warned and I am so sorry. I promise you, it's nothing we haven't seen on the show. It's milder than the Dean/Cas interactions we have seen. It does have a happy ending but we got to go through some angst first. And this started off as a little comedic piece… Oh dear. Please enjoy! Comments are loved and cherished.
> 
> So afraid to hit 'Post'...
> 
>  
> 
> John’s Age: 21

 

**Couple’s Counselling**

 

John quirked a brow when a knock sounded at his apartment door and he pushed away from his textbooks and laptop to investigate. When he opened his door to see the pouting face of his dad, John sighed and stepped aside, gesturing his father inside with a gracious hand. Dean Winchester slouched in, hands buried deep in the pockets of his jacket as he eyes danced around the apartment. John was briefly embarrassed by the mess then realized he was being ridiculous and merely shut the door behind his dad.

“You and Pop have a fight?” John asked casually, leading Dean back to his bedroom and dragging a chair along behind him. He placed it in the centre of the room and allowed Dean to invite himself to sit. The older man slung his legs around the chair backwards and pillowed his chin in his crossed arms. John mirrored the position and blinked.

“Take that as a yes then…” the twenty-one year old muttered. “You know I’m gonna start to get a complex if you keep only ever visiting me at school when you two fight. I’m just trying to figure out how you two decide who gets to come see me when you do. You guys flip a coin or something?”

Dean grunted noncommittally.

“Well aren’t you just a ray of golden sunshine,” John commented flatly. “So are you gonna tell me what it was about or I’m I gonna have to play therapist with mere guess work alone… Cuz I mean I can do it and all… I _am_ that good and well, Angel of the Lord and whatnot, but I do kinda have a paper to get back to, so it would be so much simpler if you just decided to tell me.”

“How’s Gil? You two still good?” Dean asked.

John rolled his eyes. “Jeeze, Master of the Segue you are not… Master of Avoidance? You get top prize… Yeah, yeah, Gil’s still good. We’re still good.”

“Where is he?”

“I’m not his baby-sitter,” John spat.

Dean merely quirked a brow at that one.

John rolled his eyes. “Library… Writing his paper… Like _I_ should be.”

Dean huffed. “If you’re both studying why not just work together?”

John quirked another brow and smirked a little. “Ever hear the term ‘distraction’?”

Dean made a face and John chuckled.

“We live together Dad, it’s not like I need to see him 24-7 or anything.”

“But you’re good?” Dean asked more insistently.

“Jesus, Dad! What’s with you? Why the sudden –and may I just say wholly _bizarre_ —interest in my love-life? Yes we’re fine… I mean… There’s—You know what? Not having this conversation. If you aren’t gonna tell me why you’re pissy, I’m gonna go back to my paper and you can just sit there and suck all the life, energy and happiness out of the room.”

John was about to do just as he said and swing back around to his desk when he was interrupted by a voice calling out through the apartment, “Hey Hon, you home? Finished earlier than I thought and figured we could—Oh! Hey Mister Winchester…bit of a surprise…” Gilbert Leigh was an almost too pretty young man, two years younger than John all shoulder length wavy blond hair, big doe eyes and delicate features. He was smart as a whip though, and a good kid at heart. He was also completely clueless about John’s night-job and other nature.

“Hey Gil, nice to see you again and I told you to knock off the Mister Winchester shit, there are waaay too many of us for that. Just ‘Dean’s’ cool.”

Gil grinned. “You are like the wickedest father ever, you know that? Ah… though I have the strangest feeling like I’m interrupting something… I so totally am, aren’t I?” Gil’s big brown eyes went a little wider and a lot apologetic as he flicked his gaze between both freckled, green eyed men sitting facing one another backwards on their chairs.

“Scotty said they were having a _Halo 10_ Battle Royale downstairs… Maybe I’ll invite myself over and check it out. Let you two catch up… or um… whatever…” Gil inched back out of the bedroom. Matching tight smiles met his words and Gil had to blink.

“Woah, you two are just way freaky similar,” Gil gaped a little. “See you later?”

“Sure thing, Babe,” John offered up a more gentle smile.

“Nice seeing you again, Gil,” Dean nodded.

“You too…ah… Dean,” Gil waved and the front door closing announced his hasty exit.

“Sorry,” Dean muttered.

John shrugged. “He’s fine.” John looked around the room and drummed his fingers on the back of his chair. His eyes landed on the rumbled bed and he flushed a little resisting the urge to go fix it.

“Dude relax,” Dean snorted. “Any allusions I retained that you were virginal and innocent were pretty well shattered when Cas came home that one time mortified and flustered when you were sixteen.”

John grinned and odd mixture of abashed and proud. “Yeah well, throwing it in your face is something else entirely.”

Dean shrugged. “Gil’s a good kid.”

“Yeah, I guess,” John nodded absently. Dean narrowed his eyes.

“He’s just… I don’t know… young I guess? I mean I’ve seen a hell of a lot of fucked-up shit in my twenty-one years and I guess it affects me more than I’ve realized in the past. He’s great but… just really, really young.”

Dean looked down at the carpet and said very quietly, “I think your father feels that way about me sometimes.”

John blinked, then turned placid and careful. “That so?”

“Yeah, stupid stuff really. I got mad at him because he wanted Jass to go and train with Gabriel the entire summer and I said what is it he could learn up there that we can’t teach him down here… I just… being away from Jasper that long after what happened to you. Didn’t take it too well, I suppose I… ah… overreacted.”

“You? Overreact? I can hardly believe it,” John said blandly.

“Shuddup, Brat,” Dean muttered. “I made the mistake of mentioning how Jasper wasn’t as strong as you were and then… Then Cas accused me of picking favourites and I told him not to be ridiculous and you know how he doesn’t like that… Anyway, somehow it got down to me not trusting him enough to look after his own kid and then he brought up the whole Warrior of God for millennia before I was even a speck of dust in the world thing, and I called him a pompous dick and it just kind of devolved from there. Basically he took Jass and flitted off to Heaven and I got in my car and drove here.”

“I see,” John remarked carefully. Seriously, his parents were both children. Children he had been taking care of since he was freakin’ four years old. John sighed and blinked at his father for a moment.

“You think we’re both being idiots,” Dean stated.

“Not the word I would use… but sure,” John grinned impishly.

Dean rolled his eyes, and sighed, “You think I should go home and apologize, don’t you?”

“Your life, Dad,” John shrugged.

“All right, I’m gonna head out. Nice seeing you Kiddo. I promise next time I visit it won’t be because your father and I fought,” Dean grinned. He stood up and dropped a kiss on his son’s messy dark hair. The twenty-one year old scowled up at his dad but there was no heat behind it.

“Sure thing,” John nodded, then swung back around to his laptop. “See ya.”

Dean showed himself out.

xx

“Of all the moronic, selfish, stupidly reckless things to do!”

“Jesus Christ, Pop!” John hissed, waking up from his nap with a jolt and scrambling over to slam the bedroom door shut in case Gil had come home when he was asleep.

“John Tabris, if I have to tell you to watch your mouth one more time so help me God I’ll send you straight up to seek Revelation. You aren’t too old in angelic years you know,” Castiel glared.

John rolled his eyes then flopped back on his bed. “You and Dad have a fight?”

“How are your studies?” Castiel asked. He was still standing stiffly in the centre of the room where he had appeared with no warning. John’s angelic eyes saw the double set of wings behind the veil ruffled and irate looking. John focused his eyes back to the more tangible human world and blinked away the dizziness that tended to creep in when he used both human and angelic vision.

“Fine,” John finally answered.

“You’re certain?”

John groaned, _Why me?_ was his silent plea. _Perhaps_ , he mused, _it’s punishment for his ridiculous amount of blasphemy that he had grown partial to basically after puberty hit._

“You asking about my studies, is almost as ridiculous as Dad asking about my love life. You guys really have to take Avoidance 101, seriously,” John remarked.

“Is that a class here? It does not sound very beneficial.”

John stared and had to determine if his father was being deliberately obtuse or if he was just still that naïve. John figured it had to be the first one, his Pop was no were near that clueless. Despite what he would have people around believe.

“So not gonna dignify that with a response,” was John’s answer.

A hesitant knock sounded on the door and John flickered his gaze over a little startled.

“Hey Hon,” Gil poked his head in, “I just want to let—Oh! Hello Mister Winchester, when did you get here? You must have snuck in just ahead of me.”

“Hello Gilbert,” Castiel greeted. “Please I’d feel much more comfortable if you merely called me Castiel.”

“Ah… k…” he met matching expectant looks and schooled features and had to blink. “Woah, I thought you and Dean were similar but that’s just uncanny… Right. Um, just wanted you to know that I’m off to class but I made you some food. You need to eat Sweetheart, you’ve been working like crazy. It’s in the fridge.”

“Thanks Gil, that’s sweet of you,” John smiled.

“No problem,” Gil grinned. “Nice seeing you again… Castiel.”

“And you as well Gilbert, take care,” Castiel nodded. Castiel flickered his piercing gaze over to his son as soon as the front door shut quietly. “You’ve not been eating? John you must take better care of yourself. When your father and I agreed to let you stay near campus it was under the impression you could handle it. If you ever need us to—”

“School’s fine, Pop, finished that paper now I have a stupid anatomy quiz next week. I’ve not had much of a social life but being a doctor was never supposed to be easy. I do what I can, it’s what’s important right now.”

Castiel glared, “John, I will not have you talk that way. There is more to life than studies and work.”

“Oh, I see,” John remarked, casually.

“At least that’s what your father would have me believe… Or forcibly remind me of. I’ve not decided which yet.”

“That so?”

“I unfortunately must admit, that I’ve been rather preoccupied lately. I’ve been focusing a great deal on assisting Jasper in his angelic studies and my duties in Heaven have in no way lessened with the years. Your father is taking deliberate and wholly unnecessary risks to garner my attention. I suppose… perhaps I have been neglecting him slightly. I sometimes will find myself absorbed in work and find that time has gotten away from me.”

“I’ve not noticed you get too absorbed in work,” John remarked idly, examining his fingernails.

Castiel sent an irritated scowl at his eldest son. “You think I should take better care. You think I should apologize to Dean?”

“Your life, Pop.”

“Make sure you get enough sleep and enough to eat John. You are just as human as angel and I do not wish to see you overextend yourself,” Castiel crossed the room and leaned over to place a kiss on John’s dark messy hair and John glared up at his father.

“Dude, I’m not six, you don’t have to tuck me in,” John remarked snarkily though he felt a familiar tingle of warmth and love at the old gesture. He fought down his twitching smile.

“Rest, Angel.”

“Night Papa,” John murmured in return, though if he were confronted about it he would deny it vehemently until his light extinguished.

xx

John was alone in his apartment, a bowl of magically delicious Lucky Charms in hand and the couch and a marathon of Star Wars awaiting him. He sat down and just about spilled his cereal all over himself. There before him, Jasper casual and irritated looking, sat cross-legged on John’s coffee table. The eleven year old reached out and snaked John’s Lucky Charms, diving in without invitation.

“How in Heaven’s Glorious Light did you survive eight years alone with them?” Jasper groused offering John a not at all pleasant view of the sugar and wheat confection his little brother was merrily munching on.

“Dude, don’t talk with your mouthful. Gross,” John made a face and with a put-upon sigh went back to the kitchen to retrieve another bowl. “Hey and since when did Pop let you off your leash? I thought you weren’t allowed to fly on your own.”

“I’m allowed to go to Heaven, Grampa Bobby’s and here, but Pop like monitors my every move so he’s basically sitting on my shoulder,” Jasper shrugged.

“Even still you’re a lucky little bastard. Pop or Dad didn’t let me go anywhere on my own until I was like fourteen and I wasn’t even allowed to fly until I was like eighteen… And get your skinny ass off my coffee table.”

“Please. Make me,” Jasper snorted. Unlike John who gained the majority of his ethereal abilities first, Jasper had quickly developed his more physical abilities first. When he was seven years old he was already essentially impervious to all man-made weaponry and was very nearly as strong physically as John ten years his senior. Unless John levitated Jasper off the coffee table or forcibly tackled him with all his strength there was no moving his baby brother before his baby brother was ready… At least not using traditional means.

“It was seven and a half and very carefully,” John answered, coming back over and sitting on the couch. He kicked his bare feet up on the wood of the table and edged them close to Jasper. The younger boy squeaked and leaped off the table as if he’d been stung by a mutated wasp. The kid had the most bizarre aversion to feet that John had ever seen.

“John!” Jasper whined.

John grinned. “You said make you, bitch. I made you.”

“Jerk.”

“Loser.”

“Assbutt!”

John snorted, “Nerd-angel.”

Jasper huffed.

Several moments passed in silence before Jasper meekly asked, “Are Dad and Pop getting a divorce?”

John quirked a brow, pushing aside his finished bowl of Lucky Charms a few sopping marshmallows hovering around the pink tinged milk. He leaned forward and rested his clasped hands between his knees.

“Kinda have to be married to get a divorce, Squirt. Why? What’s up?” John asked gently.

“They haven’t talked to each other for like… like a day! And Pop is just glaring all holy wrath and Dad is scowling like he has hellhounds on his ass or something and Uncle Sam looks real anxious all the time and is taking Mary out a lot more. I swear John, no joke, Pop fully threatened to drag Dad back to Hell this morning over breakfast. Then Dad got all angry and Pop literally ordered me to get to angel school. I mean he used The Word, Johnny. The _Word_ … I tried to ask Uncle Gabe but he was about as helpful as he usually is.”

The Word is what they called it when their father used his archangel status, tenants and powers to command them as angels. He very rarely used It on either of them but they often witnessed It when he was commanding his garrison. Essentially The Word not only compelled them, they literally had no choice but to obey It. Useful for parenting, annoying as hell for kids.

John whistled low. “This is rougher than I thought then.”

“Wait you knew something was going on?” Jasper looked utterly betrayed.

“Last week Dad showed up here and a few days ago Pop did. You know they run to me whenever they need a mediator. I thought they would have worked it out by now. I can’t even think what would be this bad to get them so upset. I mean unless they betrayed one another or something…” the ‘again’ was left unsaid for Jasper’s sake. John didn’t want to get into the previous instances with his baby brother right now.

“John, I think you should come home,” Jasper said seriously.

“I think that might be a good idea,” John sighed. “I just need to let Gil know, be right back.”

xx

The silence was the sort of oppressive kind that squeezed the air from your lungs and made tension ripple in the room. John frowned as soon as his feet hit the familiar planks of the hardwood and lowered the wriggling, squealing Jasper to the floor. Jasper, sensing his brother’s sudden solemnity sobered immediately and tightly squeezed John’s hand.

“John?”

“Hang here for a sec, Kiddo.”

John fished his phone from his pocket and speed dialed Sam, it rang once before the chipper voice of his uncle answered.

“Hey Uncle Sam, where are you and Mary right now?”

“Mary’s with her grandmother. I’m at the mall.”

“You mind if Jasper hangs out with you for a bit?”

“This about your parents?”

“Yeah.”

“No problem.”

“Cool. He’ll be at the toy store.”

“I’ll head over now.”

“Thanks Uncle Sam.”

“No problem, Squirt.”

“John!” Jasper protested, the minute he had his brother’s full attention again.

“Listen up, I need you to go to the mall and this isn’t up for discussion. You brought me to fix this and the only way I can do that is if I don’t have to worry about you. So go.”

“Make me!” Jasper retorted petulantly.

John rolled his eyes at that one and pressed two fingers to his little brother’s forehead. The look of betrayal John caught before Jasper disappeared into the ‘Tween space tore at John’s heart a little but it was for the best.

John’s phone chirped and a message from Uncle Sam was waiting to be read.

_**Got him** _ **.**

_**Great. Thanx.** _

_**Np. gl. Ttyl** _

_**Ttyl** _

John tucked his phone away again and breathed in and out slowly, trying to read the tension in the house and perhaps gain insight into the problem before he had to face it head on. No such luck.

“Fuck you Cas! All right? I’ve had about as much of your shit as I can handle so just fuck you.”

“Dean, you’re acting like a child.”

“Yeah, rub that one in why don’t you. You take pedo to a whole other level dude, if that’s the case.”

“Dean Winchester, you’re an arrogant, ungrateful, irreverent… Ass!”

“Oh, the sweet talk is killing be Baby, give me more.”

John winced as 185 pounds of snark and muscle was slammed into the wall upstairs. He let out a shaky breath, and could no longer make out what his parents were saying upstairs. There was not a chance in hell that the shove had stopped the argument. John just hoped it didn’t get too far or he’d have a ridiculous amount of explaining to do.

When John crested the landing it was to see his parents in a face off, his father still had his dad shoved up against the wall, one arm holding the taller man immobile as if it were nothing. Dean’s chin was raised with a clear devil-may-care attitude and John knew the look Castiel was giving the green-eyed man could melt solid steal.

As soon as both men caught sight of the boy Castiel leaped back from Dean as if he were on fire and Dean slumped against the wall with a quirky grin and tired eyes.

“You two shut the fuck up right now. And listen to me for a change,” John snarled at his parents. Castiel and Dean both winced but John pressed on.

“You and your stubborn and probably _inane_ arguments are scaring the shit out of Jasper and if he runs to me to _hide_ one more time I’ll take it out of both your asses and don’t fucking think I can’t, Pop.”

Castiel snapped his mouth shut and looked away. Dean glared down at the carpet.

“Now I don’t give a flying fuck about what your argument is about, and I don’t want to know but you either work it out or one of you gets the _hell_ out because I’m not going to have you do this when I’m not here. I spent the last twelve fucking years hiding your shit from Mary and then Jasper and I’m just done. You hear me? So call it quits or knock it off. Those are your options and I’m going to make sure you pick one.”

“Fuck this noise, I’m out of here,” Dean muttered angrily as he moved to brush passed his son. John’s shot out one girder like arm and froze Dean in his tracks.

“Don’t come back if you leave,” John said darkly. “You ready for that?”

Dean looked stricken at the words and heartbroken all at once and it killed John to say them but they had to be said. Maybe it was time for Dean to get a taste of his own medicine for a change.

“You aren’t fucking kicking me out of my own house,” Dean snarled.

John quirked an eyebrow. “The minute I handed Jasper to you on your 45th birthday he became my responsibility and I’m not going to have either of you screw him up with your posturing and stupid ass cock fights. I know what you’ve done to one another in the past and I’m not about to let Jasper learn of it. You turn into what you’re on the verge of turning into and you’re only going to be your own worst nightmare, _Dean_. You want that? You ready to live with that?”

“John,” Dean whispered shaking his head and taking a step away from his son as if he’d been slapped.

“Dad,” John said more gently. “Pop.”

Castiel turned to them then, shoulders slumped and miserable.

“I don’t know what this is between you. The last time it was this bad was after…” John shook his head. “Look, we always hurt the ones we love, Winchesters more than any and none of us are immune to that. But remember what you told me, both of you? The year I turned seven? You guys took me to out for New Years and I was so scared of the future. You said we make mistakes in life, but there isn’t anything that can’t be forgiven. You have to learn to take your own advice sometimes.”

“Dean, I didn’t want to let that girl die, but I had no other choice. I couldn’t lose you, not again,” Castiel whispered into the suddenly deathly silent hallway. “I shouldn’t have called you a child or naïve, I apologize, it was foolish but I was terrified. As terrified as I had ever been since… Since…” Castiel couldn’t say it, but Dean knew exactly what the angel meant. John had an inkling himself but let it rest.

“I know Cas, but she was a kid, you know? And when I saw her lying there all wide eyes and blond hair I couldn’t help but think of Mary, of Jessica, of my… Mom. Kids. Every one of them, though if our positions had been reversed… I’d never let that asshole take you away from John and Jasper. Never.”

“Jesus,” John whispered. Not inane then, not at all. Why didn’t either of them tell him they’d lost a victim? He shook his head.

“John,” Dean said, approaching his son. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have let our shit get in the way of being good parents. And we did. You shouldn’t have to be the one to come in here and straighten us out and I’m sorry that always seems to fall on you. I’m sorry a lot of things always seem to fall on you.”

Castiel came to John’s other side and lay his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I apologize as well. We should have been acting far better than we have been and I greatly regret my actions towards you, Jasper and Dean.”

“I’m not the one who should be hearing you’re ‘I’m sorries.’ There’s a certain six-foot-four baby and a far too wise little boy that need to hear that. I’m okay with doing this for you guys, really. But when you get Jasper involved and when he comes to me trembling and terrified that daddies are gonna be getting a divorce then it gets personal, you know? You should have told me what happened, or Uncle Sam or Grandpa Bobby. Just… think next time before you clock him in the jaw,” John nodded over to Castiel, eyes on Dean then shifted his gaze, “or you shove him into a support wall, all right?”

“If it helps clocking the Nerd-angel really hurt my hand,” Dean shook it out with a wry grin. Castiel rolled his eyes and soothed the injury with a brush of his fingertips.

“What I did Dean, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost control like that. I should be… wiser by now.”

Dean shrugged. “Hell, I’ve had worse… And besides, it was kinda hot… you know my wall kink.”

“Oh God! Dad!” John squealed in outrage. “That’s just way beyond gross. Seriously. I have to go bleach my brain, then throw up and then bleach my brain again. I’m out of here, you guys kill each other when we’re gone and I’m not coming to get you. All right?”

Dean and Castiel were sharing one of those long intense searching glances that John thought normal growing up until he saw other people’s parents. The twenty-one year old backed away slowly hands held up and shaking his head.

“I’m gonna… yeah… Not be here. Bye. Love you. Bye.”

Castiel’s gaze flickered over in acknowledgement and Dean nodded barely discernibly, then John zapped out with a blink.

The minute they were alone, Castiel had Dean slammed back against the wall again. Dean’s only response this time was a low, filthy laugh.

**End**


End file.
